Jump to the Present

It has been a week since I posted anything, and since I don’t see any hope of recapping the past seven days with any kind of detail, I’m going to have to jump forward to the present.

But the quick recap is that I went to Spring Escape with Va and Beth last weekend, then haLd a Pathfinder meeting when we got back Sunday afternoon. I had a merit point make-up session on Tuesday, and I’ve hardly had time to sit down.

Pathfinder Investiture is coming up fast, and that’s always the most difficult aspect of being a director. I am responsible for determining what insignia every person in the club has earned, recording by insignia (so I know what to order), and then again by person (so I know who to give it to). Mathematically, that would be a simple matrix transpose operation, but I don’t know how to do that in a spreadsheet. So I do it by hand. I filled out the online order form last night – that took about an hour. I usually sit on my order for a day in case I remember something else, and of course, I did remember some things tonight. So I added them, placed the order ($450!) and then remembered a few more things. But once I’ve pulled the trigger, it’s too late. I’m sure I will remember a few more things in the next two weeks, so I always just plan to place another order after Investiture. Sigh. And this after about six hours of pouring over honor documentation!

But that’s not very photogenic, is it? Let’s start in with some photos from the past two days.

Wild blackberries (Rubus spp)

About half the wild blackberry canes on my place have bloomed now. I noticed that yesterday.

Domestic Viburnum

This is some sort of Viburnum growing in a planter next to my office. The leaves say maple-leaf viburnum (V. acerifolium), the flowers say hobblebush (V. lantanoides), and the habit says none of the above. It’s most likely a hybrid, but I have no idea if the two I’ve named are members of its ancestry. That’s why I dislike trying to id cultivated plants.

Blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium augustifolium)

Fellow NH Blogger New Hampshire Garden Solutions posted photos of blue-eyed grass last week. I had been watching for some on my property to come up, but didn’t see it until today. But these blooms don’t stay open 24×7. And when they close, they just look like grass. So I could have missed them pretty easily. But not today!

Some sort of cinquefoil (Potentilla)

I’ve had some sort of cinquefoil (Potentilla spp) blooming in spades for several weeks now. I won’t pretend to know which species this is though, and I’m too tired to try to guess tonight. I’ll happily settle for the genus for now.

In other news, I may have finally managed a permanent fix to my camera’s tripod mount. I bought a threaded insert (brass) and threaded it into the plastic. It was too long, so I put some duct tape on the camera around the insert and cut it off with a hacksaw. Then I filed down the brass and removed the duct tape (it was just there to keep me from scratching up the camera horribly). It seems pretty stable now, so hopefully this will do the trick.

Oh – and this marks my 1000th post. I wish I had time to make it a better one, but this will have to do.

 

Lots of Nature

Over the past two days I’ve seen lots of nature. Luckily for me, I like that sort of thing. Let’s take a look at what I managed to capture. Not all of it makes for great photography, but I sure thought it was interesting.

Blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium)

Blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium) is one of my favorites. I stumbled across one of these along the edge of the lawn, and then made a bee-line to where I have seen them growing in semi-profusion in the past. Jackpot. There are a ton of them there.

Blackberries (Rubus spp)

The blackberries have bloomed. If all the flowers on my place turn into berries, I ought to be able to pick a couple of gallons this summer. What I like best about them here in NH is that I can pick them without getting chiggers. I can deal with mosquitoes and black flies, but chiggers are in a category of their own. I have many unpleasant memories of running into those in the South. Shudder!

Black Chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa)

This is another that I always watch closely. The stamens are red when the flowers first open, and that makes for a much prettier blossom. It doesn’t take long before the red drains out. It’s still pretty then, just not as stunning. Even though I checked this one every day, I only managed to catch the tail end of the red phase.

Stupid Zamboni

Not everything was good though. Last winter, a trail groomer hit a patch of thin ice on Sandogardy Pond and fell through. These are large machines, similar to a Zamboni (if not the same thing). The NH Department of Environmental Services came out the next day to fish it out, but look what I see on the pond now. It’s not unusual to see rainbow slicks in Sandogardy, but I have never seen them this thick or in so many places. Ugh.

I was at the pond to see if I could catch the false hellebore in bloom. Bingo!

False Hellebore (Veratrum viride) blossom

Until I took this shot (and several others of the same plant), I didn’t have a photo of this species in bloom. Psych! One for the album!

Goldsmith Beetle (Catalpa lanigera)

This beauty was on the screen door when I left for work this morning. If my id is correct, this beetle feeds on aspens (which I have here). According to my Audubon Field Guide, it was also mentioned in a book by Edgar Allen Poe. Not that I have read it.

Cinnamon Fern (Osmundastrum cinnamomeum)

I’m working on identifying ferns this summer. This is a close-up shot of a pinna from a Cinnamon Fern (Osmundastrum cinnamomeum). These have been popping up all over the place here, and I had an inkling that’s what it was. So I looked it up this evening and found that that’s exactly what it is. After reading the identifying features, I ventured out into the twilight to collect a specimen for closer examination (and confirmation). The pinnula (tiny leaves on the pinnae) are exactly the correct shape. The pinnae also have a wooly base where they connect to the rachis. I was trying to capture that here, and I guess I kinda, sorta did.

Cinnamon Fern (Osmundastrum cinnamomeum) sporangia

The fertile fronds are waaaay different from the sterile ones (shown previously). These turn the color of cinnamon when they are covered with sporangia (spore containers). Peterson’s Field Guide reports that the sporangia look like a tiny Pacman. So I took the best macro shot I could and zoomed in so you could see it too. Yeah – one of those is split open like Pacman’s mouth. Here’s the photo I zoomed in on to get the above detail.

Fertile frond of O. cinnamomeum

I took these shots in the bathroom with the super bright lights turned on. When I thought I was done, I put the camera down and started gathering up fern bits so I could chuck them outside. That’s when I spotted this guy:

Fern visitor

I haven’t attempted an id yet, but I’m guessing this is a spittle bug. It’s about the right size.